Job market....is it getting any better?

President Obama met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discuss job creation and the state of the economy following last week's startling unemployment numbers ....9.8%. In a written statement, Reid said "today's meeting with the President reinforces our shared commitment to creating more jobs and providing relief to the millions of Americans who are out of work." Just how many people are out of work? Well, according to the Labor Department, claims for unemployment benefits dropped last week to 521,000 --the lowest since January. This may be more of an indication that the economy is slowly recovering, but employers are still reluctant to hire new workers and many experts suspect that the unemployment rate will continue to climb well into 2010--Wendell Goler has this story and Correspondent Brian Wilson takes a look at how the economic hardships have really affected some of America's youngest workers.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid noted today that the Senate Finance Committee will vote on the Baucus health care bill Tuesday morning --The Congressional Budget Office reported yesterday that it estimates the Finance Committee's draft of the bill will cost $829 billion over the next 10 years.  (there still isn't firm legislative language)  Last week, two amendments were voted down to include a government-run or public option, however the bill created by the Health Committee in July does include a so called public option-the two have to be "merged" together before one bill can be considered by the full Senate.  The final Senate bill will then have to be merged with the House version (which does currently have government run --public-option)----Carl Cameron reports.

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee approved  legislation to reauthorize 3 sections of the Patriot Act that are set to expire at the end of 2009. Signed into law 45 days after the September 11th attacks, the Patriot Act was controversial and included practices such as wiretapping and allowing the FBI to obtain a court order to seize "any tangible things" deemed releveant in a terrorism investigation  ...Democrats have added a few changes to the bill and Republicans have attempted to keep those changes to a minimum-- the ammended bill will cause several of the Patriot Act powers to expire in 4 years time, allowing lawmakers to continue monitoring how the powers are being used--James Rosen has the full story.

Tonight on the panel-- Charles Krauthammer, Nina Easton and Economist Peter Morici-- discussing jobs and the Patriot Act--Thank you to everyone who logged onto the web show last night! We had the most watched show yet!!